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Is Retool free? What it actually costs in 2026

The short answer

Retool's Free plan covers up to 5 users with unlimited web and mobile apps, 500 workflow runs a month, 5 GB of database and 5 GB of file storage, 250 AI credits and 20 hours of agents. Team is $10 per standard user a month, billed annually.

Free is for building; the sixth user or the 501st workflow run moves you to Team, where builders and app users are priced separately — $10 per standard user and $5 per end user a month on annual billing. Business is $50 and $15; Enterprise is custom, self-hosted included.

What the free tier actually includes

  • Up to 5 users
  • 500 workflow runs a month; 5 GB database, 5 GB files
  • 250 AI credits and up to 20 agent hours a month

Where the wall is

User six. Internal tools spread — the finance app gets a second reviewer, the ops app a new hire — and every one of them is a seat. Workflows are the other meter: 5,000 runs on Team, then $75 per 5,000.

After that: Team $10 per standard user and $5 per end user a month, billed annually (5,000 workflow runs); Business $50 and $15; Enterprise custom; additional workflow runs $75 per 5,000 a month.

Can you self-host Retool? Yes

Retool self-hosting is an Enterprise feature. Appsmith, ToolJet and Budibase are open source and self-host on any plan — the alternatives compared here.

What it actually takes to run one yourself

Real RAM against the documented minimum, monthly cost, setup time, and the one thing that catches people out.

Self-hosting Appsmith

needs 8 GB with 2 vCPU. That is Appsmith's own baseline for standard deployments, which it describes as an entry point for pilots and low traffic rather than a production guarantee (docs say 8 GB. The Docker docs say to plan for at least 8 GB on the host for the all-in-one container)$24–48/mo on an 8 GB VPS. MongoDB, Redis and PostgreSQL run inside the one container, so nothing else is required

Self-hosting Budibase

needs 6 GB with 2 cores, the vendor's figure. The current compose file also runs a LiteLLM proxy with its own PostgreSQL, which comes out of the same budget (docs say Not stated by the vendor. Its Docker docs say 2 cores and 6 GB 'should be enough' for most use cases, and that is the only figure it gives)$24–48/mo on an 8 GB VPS. CouchDB, MinIO, Redis and the proxy all run in the same compose stack, so nothing else is required

When paying is still the right call

Stay inside the free tier — five users covers a lot of small teams and nothing here beats free and already working. Stay if the integration breadth is doing the work: Retool connects to more databases, APIs and SaaS products out of the box than any alternative, and rebuilding that plumbing is not free. Stay if your tools are business-critical and audited, because Retool's permissions, audit logs and SOC 2 posture are ahead of the open options. And stay if you have no platform team, since every alternative here is a service you now run.

What you are locked into

High, and unusually so, because the app IS the vendor's format. There is no meaningful export: an application built in Retool exists as Retool's internal representation, and moving it means rebuilding it in another builder. Queries and SQL are portable; the interface, the state wiring and the component logic are not. This is the category where the number of tools you have built is the real switching cost.

If you would rather not pay: Appsmith

90

Appsmith

The closest open equivalent — drag, drop, connect, self-host.

Free and open source to self-host. Paid cloud and enterprise tiers.

See all 5 Retool alternatives compared

Compare the free options head-to-head

Appsmith vs Refine→Appsmith vs ToolJet→Appsmith vs Windmill→

Read from Retool's own pricing and documentation on 2026-09-26 — 25 days ago. Vendors change prices without notice; confirm before you commit.

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